Standing Committee G

[Mr. Peter Pike in the Chair]

Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Pike. One of the joys of getting up at this unearthly hour, is that some of us have been up for many hours already to prepare to debate amendments. However, yet again we have a problem in that housekeeping functions are not keeping up to the speed of the Committee. I know that we work at lightning speed, but as yet we do not have Hansard for our previous sittings. I do not see how the Committee can function properly until we have seen a record of what happened in those sittings. I seek your guidance as to whether the Committee can be postponed until such time as we can obtain copies of Hansard. I do not see how we can perform our function otherwise.

Peter Pike: That is not a matter for the Chair, but I will ensure that those comments are passed on. I am told that Hansard should be available some time today.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. With great respect, I do not think that that is good enough. I simply do not know how we are expected to function if we do not have a record of what happened in the previous sittings. I ask again whether the Committee can be postponed until we can obtain copies of Hansard.

Peter Pike: I have no power to do that. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point and I will ensure that it is drawn to the attention of the appropriate people. I have no power to take the motion that he is moving.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. I seek your guidance and clarification. As of yesterday, we did not have a consolidated document on all the amendments. The somewhat arcane numbering system for our amendments makes it difficult enough to follow them in any case, but when they appear on three different pieces of paper—for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week—matters are even worse. How many times a week does that consolidated document come out? I understand that it used to appear every day, but that no longer appears to be the case.

Peter Pike: That point is incorrect. The consolidated list is published on each day on which the Committee sits, which means it is published twice a week. On other days, additional lists are printed that show the additional motions and amendments tabled since the previous meeting.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Pike. I do not want to be abstruse, and I know that the Committee wants to get on. I am not trying to waste time, but I want to get the mechanics right. We had a separate list on Thursday and Friday. I cannot
 understand why Friday's list did not consolidate Thursday's amendments as well.

Peter Pike: The point is that the lists are published on the basis that they are not consolidated until they have to be prepared for the Committee sitting. That procedure has always applied. Whatever Committee you sit on, you will pick up several lists until the day of the sitting.

Tony McNulty: I beg to move
That— 
 (1) during proceedings on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill the Standing Committee do meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at five minutes to Nine o'clock and at half-past Two o'clock; 
 (2) 12 sittings in all shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee; 
 (3) the proceedings to be taken on the sittings shall be as shown in the second column of the Table below and shall be taken in the order so shown; 
 (4) the proceedings which under paragraph (3) are to be taken on any sitting shall (and so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of the Table; 
 (5) paragraph (3) does not prevent proceedings being taken (in the order shown in the second column of the Table) at any earlier sitting than that provided for under paragraph (3) if previous proceedings have already been concluded. 
TABLE   Sitting Proceedings  Time for conclusion of proceedings   1st  Part 1, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 12 and 13  —   2nd  Part 1, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 12 and 13  —   3rd  Part 1, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 12 and 13 (so far as not previously concluded)  11.25 am   4th  Clauses 14 to 36  —   5th  Clauses 14 to 36  —   6th  Clauses 14 to 36 (so far as not previously concluded), New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 2  5 pm   7th  Clauses 37 to 39, Schedule 1, Clauses 40 to 49, Schedule 2, Clauses 50 to 53  —   8th  Clauses 37 to 39, Schedule 1, Clauses 40 to 49, Schedule 2, Clauses 50 to 53  —   9th  Clauses 37 to 39, Schedule 1, Clauses 40 to 49, Schedule 2, Part 5 (so far as not previously concluded), New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 5  11.25 am   10th  Part 6, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 6  5 pm   11th  Part 7, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 7, Clauses 78 to 83, Schedules 3 and 4, Clause 84, Schedule 5, Clause 85, Schedule 6, Clauses 86 to 90  —   12th  Part 7, New Clauses and New Schedules relating to Part 7, Clauses 78 to 83, Schedules 3 and 4, Clause 84, Schedule 5, Clause 85, Schedule 6, Clauses 86 to 90 (so far as not previously concluded), remaining New Clauses and New Schedules and any remaining proceedings on the Bill  5 pm 
 The programming motion was greeted with unusual acclamation and unanimity in the programming sub-
 committee. I should put my hand up and say mea culpa for the need for it, because I had a significant input to the original programming motion. The notion that clauses 12 and 13 and the start of part 2 should be incorporated with prior deliberations was an oversight that we have duly corrected. I commend the motion to the Committee.

David Wilshire: It would be churlish of us not to thank the usual channels for facilitating this opportunity to do things in a different way, and I thank the Minister for saying that he might have had a hand in what happened. While on my feet, I cannot miss the opportunity to say that the advice that we have always given and the objections that we have always raised to the inclusion of knives in the debate of a Bill have been proved to be correct. Had we been working our way sensibly through this one, the Minister's correction would not have been necessary, and my intervention need not have taken place.
 Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 - Regional planning bodies

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. 
Mr. Clifton-Brown rose—

Peter Pike: You have to rise quickly if you wish to speak in my Committees, Mr. Clifton-Brown.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I can see that you work very quickly, Mr. Pike. Even at this time of the morning, you are extremely sharp.
 Clause 2 is one of the Bill's most important as it sets up the duties and functions of a regional planning body. We made progress last week, in that we learned from the Minister that the recognised bodies are, in the absence of elected regional assemblies, to be the regional chambers. Of the eight regions, three are not yet up and running, but they will be by the spring, in the words of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). I hope that I have quoted him correctly; if not, he will no doubt put the record straight. That was one of the most important revelations of our two sittings last week, and it was very welcome. It would be useful to have the Hansard before me, so that I could check the accuracy of my quotation, but I must rely on my memory instead. 
 I am slightly concerned about the explanatory notes, which make it clear that, in itself, a change of membership of the recognised regional planning body would not render it invalid. What does the Minister understand by that? To take the most extreme example, if the regional planning body were to contract out all its functions, would that in itself render it derecognised? That point needs to be clarified. 
 Having said that, I must say that the Committee has examined the clause in huge detail and made progress. 
 We have much to do today, so in order that we may continue to make progress, I shall let the Minister reply.

Tony McNulty: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that clause 2 is fundamental to the development of the Bill. Under subsection (2), permission is given to develop subsequent regulations and criteria for membership of the regional planning body, as we discussed last week. The criteria currently envisaged for the membership or establishment of RPBs, against which they will be judged and duly recognised, consist, as outlined in the Green Paper, of whether the RPB and the steering groups that are proposed to manage preparation of the revised strategy are sufficiently representative; whether the RPB will consult a sufficiently broad range of regional stakeholders, including through focus groups or planning forums; whether the RPB will work sufficiently closely with all groups to ensure delivery of the strategy; and whether the RPB will be able to take a sufficiently strategic regional view, addressing difficult regional choices where necessary.
 Under clause 2(6), if the membership of the body changes—for example, if someone leaves for whatever reason and someone else joins—there is no need to re-recognise or, indeed, derecognise the body. As I understand it, a simple change of membership is permitted in the spirit of what the RPB should consist of and in the context of the criteria in the Green Paper.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Clause 2(6) states:
''A change in the membership of a body which is not incorporated does not—''
 these are the important words— 
''(by itself) affect the validity of the recognition of the body.''
 In what circumstances does the Minister envisage that a body will be so transformed by a change in membership that he would have to consider derecognising it?

Tony McNulty: That would be the case if the transformation of the membership meant that the regional planning body fell outside the criteria that we have laid down, indicatively for now, in the planning Green Paper, which will be developed more substantively by circular or regulation. Those criteria will be clearly laid down. One could envisage cases in which an additional or replacement member substantially transformed the body so that it was no longer representative of the region or the other criteria outlined. The change in membership, and whether it is transformative, will be dealt with in the context of the criteria as laid down. Clearly if the change is simple, involving someone from the same representative body moving to the RPB, that will make no difference to the body's representativeness and ability to carry out its work. It would be foolish if every such straightforward change of membership had to be recognised by the Secretary of State.
 Given that I gave the Committee a route map last week of the parts of each clause that will give rise to regulation or other secondary activity, I shall try in each stand part debate to refer back to that to let Members know where there will be subsequent 
 regulation. With that generosity of spirit in mind, I commend the clause to the Committee. 
 Question put and agreed to. 
 Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 - RPB: general functions

David Wilshire: I beg to move amendment No.6, in
clause 3, page 2, line 20, leave out 'may be expected to'.
 My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) has asked me to move an amendment, which is a very risky manoeuvre and one that he may come to regret. I hope not; I think that I understand what is required of me, but I shall hear from him afterwards if I do not. 
 The amendment seeks to remove the words ''may be expected to'' from clause 3(2), so that it would read ''The RPB must keep under review the matters which affect'' rather than 
''the matters which may be expected to affect'',
 as it does at present. I think that the words ''may be expected to'' are either unnecessary or make the provision far too wide. The Committee can take its pick of which argument it prefers. 
 So far as I can see, something either affects a matter that concerns the RPB or it does not. To say that it may or may not affect it is unnecessary. I accept that the RPB must keep under review ''matters which . . . affect'' such concerns. That makes sense to me, and, I hope, to the entire Committee. It should not be difficult to know what matters do or do not have an effect. On the one hand, then, the argument is that the words ''may be expected to'' are quite unnecessary, and I should be interested to know why the Minister thinks that they add something. 
 On the other hand, an argument could be made that those words give planning bodies the right simply to announce, ''We think this might affect us, so we shall poke our nose into it''. I should be opposed to that. Who is to say whether such a matter will or will not have an effect? If someone on a planning body makes the subjective assessment that in their view, at some stage in the future, it may affect that body, then they will be able to become involved, interfere and take their remit as wide as they choose. 
 The Bill—this returns us to previous arguments—is about land use and town and country planning, not social engineering. I see ''may be expected to'' as another opportunity for somebody to get up to mischief, should he or she so wish, and to say that they will take their remit as wide as they like to interfere in whatever they like, dragging into that remit all sorts of matters that do not have any direct bearing on land use planning. 
 There are therefore two possible reasons for the amendment: either the words that it would delete are unnecessary, or they go too far. I invite the Committee to take its pick, but whichever reason appeals to them, I trust that they will vote for the amendment.

Sydney Chapman: I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne
 (Mr. Wilshire) says. Whatever disagreement there may be about the contents of any Bill, let alone this one, I am sure that we are united in our duty to put on the statute book a measure that is unambiguous, exact and, so far as we can achieve it, precise. I feel that the phrase ''may be expected to'' contradicts that aim. Like my hon. Friend, I wonder whether it is necessary. I shall listen to the Minister's reply with interest, but if he does think it necessary, I wonder whether it is too wide-sweeping.
 That imprecise phrase has been echoed in the two clauses that we have previously examined. We discussed the phrase ''however expressed'' during our consideration of clause 1(2). Incidentally, the Minister will remember that I asked him last Thursday whether that has been included in any previous legislation. 
 Clause 1(4) includes the phrase ''so much of''. When we examined clause 2(5), we discussed whether it should include ''may'' or ''must''. I felt that it should be ''must'' because the Bill must be precise. No doubt we shall discuss other examples of such language. In all sincerity, I ask the Minister whether it is necessary to include the phrase ''may be expected to''.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This is, I am afraid, another example of sloppy drafting. Clause 3(2) states:
''The RPB must keep under review the matters which may be expected to affect''.
 The question is, ''may be expected'' by whom? Is it the RPB? Is it the man on the Clapham omnibus? Is it a planning QC? Who might it be expected to be and what level of knowledge will that person have? My hon. Friends are on to a good point. We need the Minister to clarify what clause 3(2) means.

Tony McNulty: To the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), may I say that the exposition about legal precedent or otherwise is on its way for clause 1? I suspect that we are chasing shadows because, as the hon. Gentleman will find out shortly, I can give him legal precedent for clause 3 without having to write to him. Amendment No. 6 would require the regional planning body to keep under review matters that affect development in its region, or any part of its region, and the planning of that development. The Bill confines that duty to matters that may be expected subsequently to affect the development of an RPB's planning.
 There is absolutely nothing to be gained from amendment No. 6. If an RPB thinks that a matter affects the development of its region, it must keep it under review. That is not a licence to interfere with other bodies, but it is putting that duty on a statutory footing for the RPB. By using the term ''may be expected'', the RPB must also look ahead to see whether it can predict that future matters will affect development and must therefore keep them under review. Would that the world were simplistic and straightforward enough clearly to summarise in black and white every single possible matter that might affect the future of an RPB and its work, but life is not like that. In practice, an RPB will need to establish arrangements for keeping under review a range of matters, including economic development, 
 regeneration, housing and transport, to ensure that it has robust and comprehensive information. 
 I suspect that the hon. Member for Spelthorne is partly right and, following on from last Thursday, will be consistent in his detestation of anything that nudges things beyond the parameters of a simply focused land use function in the planning system, which is exactly what clause 3 is about. Clause 3 goes to the heart of spatial strategy, which is distinct in being more comprehensive than a structure plan or a unitary development. However good a job each RPB is doing, some circumstances affecting a region and its development will become clear only with hindsight. Similarly, circumstances that appear likely to affect a region's development may, in hindsight, not have done so. 
 The duty in clause 3(2) is modelled on—in essence, lifted from—the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which has stood the test of time. Amendment No. 6 would leave the RPB open to the risk of failing to discharge a statutory duty simply because what it expected to affect a region's development or the planning of that development did not do so. 
 Clause 3 provides the RPB with the tools, in the form of clear and sensible statutory duties, to do its job. The amendment would put every RPB at risk of failing to carry out its review functions properly. It is not acceptable, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it. 
 I said at the beginning that the amendment is chasing shadows. There is nothing sinister, untoward or devious about the clause, which is rooted in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I would not go so far as to say that the Bill is an attempt at social engineering, but if, like the hon. Member for Spelthorne, one is entirely against including anything other than land use, it would be entirely legitimate to oppose the clause root and branch—legitimate, but entirely wrong. 
 The clause is part and parcel of the development of spatial strategies rather than just narrowly defined land use and development control plans. Such strategies are at the heart of the Bill and at the heart of the comprehensive and integrated planning system that the country needs for the future.

David Wilshire: Over the weekend, being conscious that there are courses for speed reading, I tried to find one for speed listening, because I wanted to do justice to the Minister's comments. I am beginning to understand that the Government Whips Office decides how many sittings are necessary on the basis of which Minister is taking the lead and how quickly he or she will get through the briefs that are prepared by civil servants. However, I caught the drift of what the Minister said.
 The Minister said that I was absolutely right—I knew that, because I am always absolutely right. However, when a Labour Minister admits it, begin to doubt my judgment, and I have had to think carefully 
 about that comment. He asked me to be consistent. I am always consistent, as he will discover, except when it suits my purpose not to be. I believe that he will not be disappointed on this occasion. 
 The Minister said that there is a legal precedent and cited the 1990 Act. I am not a lawyer and am not, therefore, as impressed by precedent as lawyers are. I always regard the argument that we have done something before as similar to the argument about beating one's wife—that if it has been done before, it is legitimate to do it again. I do not agree with that one, either. The provision dealt with in the amendment is either necessary, or it is not. What might have been necessary in 1990 is of little interest to us now. 
 My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold was absolutely right to ask, ''expected by whom?'' If it is the experts, I am worried—I should far prefer it to be the person on the Clapham omnibus.

Tony McNulty: The phrase ''expected by whom'' refers initially to any reasonable person—I am sure that reasonable people ride the Clapham omnibus—but ultimately to the courts for legal interpretation.

David Wilshire: The phrase ''any reasonable person'' could keep us going for the rest of the morning, but I shall resist the temptation to pursue it further.
 The only comment made by the Minister that worried me deeply was his announcement that there was nothing devious or sinister about the wording. With the greatest respect, I must note that all members of the Committee are politicians, and when a politician asserts that there is nothing devious or sinister about what he is doing, it is usually an admission that there probably is. 
 On this occasion, however, I have listened carefully and caught all the words. We now have enough in Hansard, if it ever appears, to satisfy people in the future about what the Government intended. That said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Matthew Green: I beg to move amendment No. 140, in
clause 3, page 2, line 23, at end insert— 
 '(2A) The RPB must prepare and implement a statement of community involvement.'

Peter Pike: With this, it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 59, in
clause 7, page 4, line 25, at end insert— 
 'The final adopted version of the RSS must contain a statement of the extent of community involvement.'
 No. 37, in 
clause 10, page 6, line 14, leave out subsection (2)(c).
 No. 116, in 
clause 5, page 3, line 25, at end insert— 
 '(2A) Before preparing a draft revision of the RSS the RPB must set out proposals to ensure appropriate public consultation on the contents of the RSS in accordance with such guidance as is specified by the Secretary of State.'

Matthew Green: Amendment No. 140 is intended to create the requirement for a statement of community involvement at regional level that the Bill requires at local level. Perhaps the Government accidentally
 omitted that. I am sure that they meant to ensure that regional planning was as publicly accountable as local planning. There is little justification for arguing that there should be less regional accountability, particularly as the bodies concerned will initially be unelected and, in some regions, may remain so rather longer than we would wish. The need for a statement of community involvement is even greater in the case of an unelected RPB. If there is to be little public scrutiny or ability to influence decisions at regional level, we shall be moving away from having a greater public say, especially as some powers will rise up from county councils, which are elected and undergo scrutiny at present.
 Amendment No. 140 is intended to let the Government add something that I am sure they meant to include. The Minister will probably say that I am putting it in the wrong place and that the amendment is drafted wrongly, but I find it hard to believe that the Government did not mean to include a statement of community involvement at regional level. Amendments Nos. 59 and 116 assist in correcting the omission. 
 I am somewhat worried by amendment No. 37, which would remove the Secretary of State's powers—I say that as someone who tried to remove all his powers earlier—to determine 
''the nature and extent of consultation with and participation by the public in anything done under this Part''.
 A regional body might issue a statement of community involvement that simply stated that it would not consult the public. In those circumstances, I would like the Secretary of State to have sufficient reserve powers to be able to step in and say that there are minimum levels for those statements.

Sydney Chapman: My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold can speak for himself, but my reading of the amendments is that if amendment No. 59 were accepted, amendment No. 37 would be unnecessary. That amendment must not be read on its own, but in conjunction with our other two amendments.

Matthew Green: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. Clause 10(2)(c) enables the Secretary to make regulations to make provisions as to
''the nature and extent of consultation''.
 Amendment No. 59 follows on from amendment No. 140 in the sense of insisting that there should be a statement of community involvement. It does not set out minimum levels. Although I do not like the Secretary of State to have too many powers, in this instance removing the power would cause a problem if a regional chamber decided that its statement of community involvement should state that it would have very little of it. If the Government cannot accept my wording, I hope that they will accept the need for a statement of community involvement at a regional level. I am sure that that is what they intended, and I hope that the Minister can reassure us on that point.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I support the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green). His amendment is very much in line with our amendments Nos. 59 and 116, as he pointed out. Amendment No. 37 has somewhat the opposite effect and was intended to be a probing
 amendment. In the event that the Government will not accept the hon. Gentleman's amendment and my other amendments, amendment No. 37 presents the reverse case and shows the absurdity of not including the community involvement element. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that argument.
 I believe that the Minister has commissioned the consultants Llewelyn-Davies to advise on the framework for community involvement, as it stands in clause 17(1), (2) and (3). Clause 17 refers to the community involvement element that will be required in drawing up local development documents. Will the Minister confirm whether he has commissioned consultants? If he has, will he tell us when they will report and when Mr. Pike and the Committee will be able to see their conclusions so that we can discuss that area of the Bill in an informed way? 
 It is extraordinary that the Bill includes an element of community involvement in drawing up LDDs, which is the local authority part of the planning process, yet does not lay down any community involvement in relation to the regional spatial strategy, which is the higher process. The hon. Member for Ludlow made the point that that seems somewhat inconsistent. The Conservatives think that there should be some public involvement, and the amendments are intended to put that obligation in the Bill. Under clause 6(2), any person ''may make representations'' to the Secretary of State on the draft provision of the RSS. Under clause 6(3), the Secretary of State 
''may arrange for an examination in public'',
 but does not have to. That is not sufficiently positive. There should be an examination in public. 
 Clause 8(2)(a) makes it clear that if an examination takes place, the Secretary of State must consider the chairman's representations. The Secretary of State will then publish his revision. However, if the Secretary of State decides that no examination is to be held, there is effectively no community involvement in drawing up the RSS. That seems to be a lacuna in the Bill. After all, under clause 17, there must be a statement of community involvement when drawing up LDDs, so it is inconsistent not to have one when drawing up RSSs. 
 The catalogue of resentment will grow if the public perceive that they are being dictated to by a remote RSS adopted by a chamber composed wholly of indirectly elected members. Indeed, they may not even have an indirectly elected member representing their area because the numbers involved are such that a whole county council area might not have an indirectly elected member in the chamber. Resentment may grow to such an extent that it will start to discredit the whole of the Government's regional agenda. A lot of people will think that it is intolerable for an unelected regional chamber to hand down house-building targets without authority or without members of the public in the area having an automatic right of representation as to what is to be included in the RSS. 
 As we will find out, a local authority must consider what is handed down to it by the RSS when drawing up the local development framework. If the RSS is drawn up with no public involvement, there will be 
 resentment. There is a democratic deficit here, and I urge the Minister to consider seriously whether the Bill can include some more definite power, so that there will be community involvement in drawing up the RSS.

David Wilshire: This is turning into something of a curious morning. I had not been here more than a few minutes before a Minister praised me for being absolutely right; I now find myself having to say that I agree with a Liberal Democrat, so the morning has become even more curious. What is even more curious is that I have been maligned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold. When my amendments are described as probing, it usually means that my Front-Bench colleagues do not approve of them. This has been a curious morning so far, and I am full of anticipation for what else may happen by 11.25 am.
 My amendment No. 37—if I can be so bold as to say that it is mine, and therefore distance the responsibility from my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold—is not what it appears to be. It conforms with the earlier comments of the hon. Member for Ludlow in that I have tabled it for a straightforward reason. It may appear that the aim of removing the words 
''the nature and extent of consultation''
 is to make consultation unnecessary. However, I was concerned about the fact that the Bill says: 
''The regulations may in particular make provision as to . . . the nature and extent of consultation''.
 If the Secretary of State is making regulations, he may specify the extent of the consultation, which could be a good thing. However, apart from the Minister, who is neither devious nor sinister, I suspect all Labour Governments of being devious and sinister, and giving the Secretary of State the power to define the extent of consultations will allow him to limit consultation. He could say, ''I am prepared to allow consultation thus far, but no further.'' That worries me, but my amendment is probing, and if the Minister can reassure me that clause 10(2)(c) is not intended to enable the Government to restrict consultation, I will be happy not to move it.

Matthew Green: It might help if the Minister indicated that it would be the Secretary of State's intention to state the minimum nature and extent of consultation. I am speaking with the benefit of hindsight, but I think that the missing word is ''minimum''. If the Minister agreed with that, many Members would agree with him. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern that the Secretary of State could restrict the nature and extent of the consultation, so I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government's intention is to define the minimum consultation, and that they will introduce an amendment later.

David Wilshire: I hope that the Minister does that, because if he put on record that the purpose of the subsection is to enable the Secretary of State to tell a planning body that its consultation has been
 inadequate and that it should do more, I would support him. However, we need an assurance or a Government amendment that says that the Secretary of State may not order a planning body to carry out less consultation than it set out to carry out in the first place. That is my concern, and I hope that if I have not persuaded the Minister, I have at least persuaded my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold that my amendment No. 37 is reasonable and sensible.

Sydney Chapman: Once again I can be brief, because much of what I was going to say has been said by my hon. Friends, and I do not want to detain the Committee for longer than necessary.
 There are two incontrovertible aspects of the Bill. The first is that the powers of the Secretary of State will be increased compared with the principal 1990 Act. I am not arguing that in some areas the powers should not be increased; I am only saying that they are being increased. Secondly, it is incontrovertible that the Bill introduces powers and functions for the regional planning boards, none of which—I stand to be corrected—have yet been directly elected. Therefore, it is essential that we include in the Bill the need for public consultation wherever practicable. That is why I support amendment No. 140, moved by the hon. Member for Ludlow, which mirrors our amendment No. 59. 
 My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne is being modest. I have examined his amendment No. 37 and our amendment No. 116, which would insert the words: 
''Before preparing a draft revision of the RSS the RPB must set out proposals to ensure appropriate public consultation on the contents of the RSS in accordance with such guidance as is specified by the Secretary of State''.
 I reckon that that means that clause 10(2)(c) is unnecessary, although I am prepared to correct myself. If I believe that a requirement for public consultation should be inserted into the Bill whenever practical, for the reasons that I have given, I shall see nothing wrong in keeping that subsection in. However, it was felt to be over-egging the pudding. 
 I shall make one final point, and I hope that I am not being too pedantic. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne could argue that, just as the public consultation should be set out in specific detail, we might find the same with ''such guidance''. What guidance? There is a limit to what can practically be put in a Bill, so I think that the definition 
''such guidance as is specified by the Secretary of State''
 is perfectly in order.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sure that my hon. Friend has spotted that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne to clause 10 contains the phrase:
''The Secretary of State may by regulations''.
 Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Minister is to reject our amendments, he must at least give the Committee an indication of what he intends to put into those regulations?

Sydney Chapman: I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. This is necessarily a complicated Bill. The
 emphasis and weighting that one gives certain words and phrases say everything. I want a Bill to be as specific as it practically can be, but I accept that there must be sweeping definitions that cannot necessarily be spelled out. Within that, I agree with my hon. Friend.
 I apologise for detaining the Committee for slightly longer than I had intended, Mr. Pike, but I strongly support amendment moved by the hon. Member for Ludlow, as well as those that we tabled.

Tony McNulty: I agree with Opposition Members that the amendments raise important issues, so I apologise if I detain the Committee slightly, to explain our position. I fully accept that there is nothing devious or sinister about the amendments, if the hon. Member for Spelthorne will accept that there is nothing devious or sinister about the clause.
 Consultation and community involvement in a regional planning body's work, including statutory statements of community involvement and prescribing the consultation required in preparing draft revisions to regional spatial strategy, are important. I agree that community involvement in the RPB's work is vital and that there must be proper consultation on the preparation of revisions to the RSS. That is why consultation with and participation by the public are highlighted in the Bill as matters on which the Secretary of State may make regulations. 
 I happily confirm that we will not limit the consultation that the RPB can undertake in the course of RSS revisions, but it may assist the Committee if I explain the procedures that we envisage for community participation in the revisions. 
 Through guidance—a revised version of PPG11—we shall make it clear that the regional planning body should consider how best it can encourage community participation in the revision process and provide best practice advice. That will include the provision of free and readily available information about the preparation and content of the draft revision via newsletters and the appropriate RPB's website. In addition, we shall make a number of bodies statutory consultees, using the powers in clause 10, in particular subsection (2)(c). I do not want hon. Members to view those powers as embodying an either/or position. It would be inappropriate if we simply had a list of statutory consultees, ticked a box and said that that was sufficient for community or public participation. Equally, it would be inappropriate to have a broad notion that there should be community involvement and participation, to put that, through regulation, at the heart of the regional planning system, and still not give RPBs a statutory duty to consult a rich and varied list of statutory consultees who represent defined and clear interests above and beyond the norm for the wider public and community. 
 The guidance will emphasise that the RPB should also consider, via the county councils and the local planning authorities covered by the revision, how it can involve other developing networks, such as local strategic partnerships and community networks, in the review process—through the use of local planning forums, for example. 
 The person appointed to conduct an examination of the draft regional spatial strategy revision and the Secretary of State will expect the regional planning body to have provided opportunities for the community to be kept informed and involved, outside of the main stages of the more formal consultation. Although one should not underestimate the difficulties of securing effective community involvement in a regional strategy, the Committee should bear in mind that the existing non-statutory procedures for RPG have worked well, to an extent. 
 The Secretary of State has the power to withdraw recognition from the regional planning body, and the failure to involve regional interest adequately could result in such a withdrawal. That means that the criteria defining worthiness and the fitness for purpose of a regional planning body, to which I alluded earlier, include the notion of involving regional interests and stakeholders adequately. I interpret that as ensuring that at the regional level there is community involvement in any revisions. That is central to all that we seek. 
 For those reasons we see no pressing need to turn existing procedures into regulation, but the system is new, and it would be unacceptable not to have that as an option. Amendment No. 37 would therefore not be acceptable. It may be that over time, and with experience, it proves sensible to introduce additional consultation guidance over and above that I have already mentioned, but we feel that it is appropriate to see how the new system works in practice before coming to any final decision.

Matthew Green: The Minister has made it clear that the Government intend to set minimum rather than maximum levels. We will deal with clause 10 in some detail later, I hope—or maybe not. I wonder whether the Government might consider making it clear that the provision sets a minimum level. I realise the current Minister's views on that, but some future Minister might use that power to restrict consultation. I am sure that that is not the Minister's intention.

Tony McNulty: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I would—and I know that the draftsmen would—be loth to insert minima or maxima, because for every good authority or regional planning body that sets a minimum and aspires to go way beyond that, a range of others will see it as the level that they need to reach. If we made that change, it would weaken the Secretary of State's hand in saying whether an RPB has sufficiently represented the range of interests in a particular region in the context of community involvement. I am slightly wary of introducing minima or maxima because they are open to all sorts of interpretations, perverse and otherwise.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Minister has already explained that the process is dynamic, and everyone involved will learn from experience. Surely we shall expect those involved to adopt best practice. Indeed, the Secretary of State will adopt best practice. Would it not therefore make sense to include a statement of community involvement for each RSS, so that we can see rapidly which RPB is adopting best practice, and spread that across all the other RPBs?

Tony McNulty: I think not, for the following simple reason. As I have already said, we feel that the revised PPG11 will achieve all of that and more, and leave the framework and powers in place for the Secretary of State to determine whether each RPB has sufficiently represented those interests. Community involvement at that regional level should be entirely distinct from community involvement at the coal face—as it were—in the development of local development documents, and the entire planning and development control process, for reasons that we shall consider later. There will be nothing to stop each RPB drawing up a statement of how it intends to involve the community in preparing future draft RSS provisions. I will happily encourage that through guidance.
 Amendment No. 59 would require the RSS to provide an account of how the community has been involved. There are good reasons why statutory provision of that sort would not necessarily be appropriate. First, the RSS is a statement of the Secretary of State's policies for the region, so it would not be the right place for a statement of community involvement in RSS preparation. 
 Secondly, the extent of community involvement and stakeholder participation in the preparation of draft revisions to the RSS are matters that the Secretary of State and the person appointed to conduct the examination can take into account in deciding whether the policies and proposals are soundly based. Allowing the notion of participation and community involvement to permeate the entire process will be a far more efficient and effective way of securing that involvement at regional level than what is suggested in the amendment, however well intended. 
 The person appointed to conduct the examination might conclude that community involvement and stakeholder participation had been inadequate, and may have contributed to a draft revision that was seriously defective and not capable of ready correction—so the notion of involvement and participation is already in the process whereby revisions are considered. If a draft RSS revision were so defective, the person conducting the examination could recommend the Secretary of State to withdraw it, and require the RPB to come forward with a more soundly based revision, clearly containing evidence of stakeholder and community involvement. 
 Amendment No. 140 would require the RPB to prepare and implement a statement of community involvement. As I have already said, I am sympathetic to the intention there. The Bill requires local planning authorities to have statements of community involvement, as we shall see later, so at first sight, one might conclude that RPBs too should have them. However, there are important differences, to which I have already alluded. A local authority's statement of community involvement for local development documents serves two purposes. It deals with the preparation of local development documents and with the exercise of functions under part III of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, such as coal-face decisions on planning applications. Those, especially 
 the latter, are much closer to the local community than the strategic policies to be contained in the RSS. 
 There are many differences between local planning authority areas—such as whether they are urban or rural, and other matters that we explored last week. The statement of community involvement aims to ensure that suitable consultation takes place in each area. Those differences will be smaller between regions, and there will also be a strategic dimension at regional level, so there will be less benefit in having a statement of community involvement for regional matters. 
 I emphasise that through the utilisation of PPG11 and the other powers that date from the establishment of the regional planning body, we intended to—and have—put wider community and stakeholder involvement and statutory consultee involvement at the heart of the drawing up of RSSs, and of consideration of revisions. The lack of such community involvement is a bona fide reason for the person in charge of an examination in public, or even the Secretary of State, to explore matters further with the RPB and determine that a revision may be defective because that involvement has not been sufficient.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: First, will the Minister confirm that he has appointed consultants to examine how the framework for community involvement will operate under clause 17? Secondly, will he consider further my point that individual members of the public will feel very aggrieved if they do not have a sense of ownership of their planning system? If they feel that their local authority has been dictated to by an RPB that has not properly consulted them, they will feel even more aggrieved, especially in such matters as house-building targets and numbers.

Tony McNulty: On the first point, which I was about to reach, we have appointed consultants to examine the framework and benchmarks for community involvement, and their report will be published soon. Short of having a crystal ball or a degree in futurology, I cannot determine when it will be published, or whether it will be published while we are deliberating the clauses to which it refers. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will do all in my power to ensure that it will be in the public domain and in the hands of members of the Committee before the Bill has concluded its parliamentary passage—I mean, of course, before the House of Commons has concluded its consideration of the Bill. That was not a cryptic allusion to what will happen to it up the other end of the building.
 I agree in general with the hon. Gentleman's point about ownership. I fully understand how people will be disaffected or disinclined to support the bodies if there is no sense of legitimacy or ownership of the regional spatial strategies. In all seriousness, that is why we have put community, stakeholder and statutory consultee involvement—all three are crucial—at the heart of the regulation process at regional level. 
 We will also determine that regional planning bodies must include details of consultation, and how 
 they have conducted that consultation, in their annual reports during the genesis of an RSS. In that context, and with PPG at the revised RPG level in place, it is not entirely accurate to say that there will never be input from the public or the wider community if the Secretary of State does not direct an examination in public for revisions to the RSS. On no occasion will a revision of RSS not at least be put into the public domain for community response and wider public engagement. The examination in public will simply be part of that process, but there will be significant input before that, not least because of the criteria that originally established the RPB, and the serious criterion concerning taking seriously, and taking on board, an array of regional interests as part of the underlying integrity and legitimacy of the regional planning bodies. 
 I therefore have no problem with the nature of the debate or the amendments, probing or otherwise. However, for the reasons that I outlined, and given my assurances that we are taking seriously public participation and community involvement at regional level, we have determined that this is a more appropriate and effective way of getting to the heart of that involvement in the process, followed by an SCI in the LDD—if I may spit out the acronyms. I take seriously the points that have been made by the hon. Member for Ludlow and other hon. Members, but I urge him to withdraw the amendment.

Matthew Green: The Minister's response was fascinating, and in many ways reassuring. He told us that many safeguards were built into the Bill. Interestingly, however, he never explained why the amendment should not be accepted. The amendment would enhance not detract from the measures that the Minister mentioned, which include specifying statutory consultees and other forms of community involvement.
 The debate has thrown up two issues, both of which were raised by the hon. Member for Cotswold. They are both good reasons why the amendment should be accepted. The first is best practice, which would make the regional chambers, and ultimately the elected regional assemblies, state what their community involvement is. It would be much easier to analyse what each area is doing, and where regions are performing well in public consultation and where they are not—and it would make it much easier for the Minister to make regulations on the minimum levels of consultation, if he needs to. The public will be able to decide whether the elected regional assemblies consult them fully or do only the bare minimum. None of the Minister's reassurances help with that. 
 I concur with the hon. Member for Cotswold about public ownership. All the Minister's safeguards are present, but are not obvious and will not seem like safeguards to the public. For example, the Minister and inspectors have certain powers, but the public do not readily understand that. 
 One important aspect of a statement of community involvement—an aspect lacking in the Bill—is that it makes it clear to the public exactly what they can expect of their regional body. I am reassured about the existence of safeguards to ensure that public 
 consultation and consultation with other bodies is a key element of the regional planning process, but I am not convinced that the Minister has provided a good reason why amendment No. 140 should not be included in the Bill, and I urge the Committee to support it. 
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I beg to move amendment No. 103, in
clause 3, page 2, line 28, leave out subsections (4) and (5).

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 51, in
clause 3, page 2, line 29, at end insert 
 'which must consider Action Plans for the forthcoming year and progress in meeting those plans for the previous year.'.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I want to make progress, because we have a great deal to discuss this morning and important amendments to move on to.
 Subsections (4) and (5) stipulate that the RPB must produce a report on the implementation of the RSS in the region, which is burdensome and unnecessary. Subsections (2) and (3), under which the RPB has to keep matters under review, are already adequate to the task without the additional need to produce bureaucratic reports. If the Minister insists that the reports must be produced, we would like to prescribe what type of form would be most helpful—hence amendment No. 51. I commend the format of the old Department of the Environment reports, which contained four columns. One was a description of the target to be carried out, the second was the back year's target, the third was a reconciliation column, and the fourth dealt with any further action necessary in the coming year. That simple style of report made it easy to measure progress in respect of all objectives, and I commend it to the Minister.

Paul Beresford: I am a little disappointed that my Front-Bench colleagues do not believe that this amendment is as important as I do.
 We constantly hear from the Government that they have a light touch and that they are giving freedom to local authorities, yet the Bill is riddled with examples such as those in subsections (5) and (4), which are to some extent overtaken by subsection (3). If implementation is monitored one would expect a report, but that is effectively redundant. The problem is the requirement that the RPB must report to the Secretary of State. What happens if local 
 authorities do not do so? How heavy will the report be? What sort of details will be required? What will happen if the Secretary of State does not agree? Will there be any consultation on the report? Will there be a reaction to the report from lower tiers, and will the Secretary of State take that into account? If the Secretary of State does not agree, will he change it? Will he interfere? What effect will that have on the status of the body producing the report? As my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold is in a hurry, I shall leave those questions in cryptic form.

Tony McNulty: The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cotswold would remove the requirement for the planning body to report annually to the Secretary of State on the implementation of the RSS in the region. Not surprisingly, we consider the amendment to be unacceptable. Policies in the RSS are those of the Secretary of State—not those of the RPBs—relating to the development and use of land in the region. The amendment would not remove the RPBs' duty to monitor implementation of the RSS, to which the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) alluded, and consider whether implementation is achieving the purpose of the RSS. As a result, although the regional planning body would be informed about the performance of the Secretary of State's policies, the Secretary of State would not. That would be a bizarre state of affairs.
 Amendment No. 51 takes a somewhat different line on the same issue, and seeks to add to the requirements for the annual report to the Secretary of State. It would require the RPBs' annual reports on the implementation of the RSS in their regions to consider action plans for the coming year, and progress in meeting action plans for the previous year. It is unclear what is meant by an action plan. I presume that it means a discrete set of proposals concerned with implementing the policies in the RSS over the coming year. On that basis I consider the amendment to be unnecessary, given the arrangements that we have provided in the Bill and the intended regulations and guidance. 
 In summary, a regional planning body has three main functions under the Bill: preparing draft revisions to the RSS, keeping the RSS under review, and giving advice to other bodies or persons if that would help to achieve implementation of the RSS. Clause 3(3) requires RPBs to monitor implementation of the RSS throughout their regions, and to consider whether the implementation is achieving the purposes of the RSS. We intend to set out in regulations under clause 3 the fact that the report should contain information on the degree to which the targets set in the RSS are being achieved, and if not, why not. As I have made clear—

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: In a simple, easy-to-understand and concise way, the mechanism prescribed in the old Department of the Environment reports did precisely what the Minister has just said. May I commend that format to him and ask him to examine it to see whether it could be incorporated?

Tony McNulty: I can certainly agree to consider whether that is appropriate when we draw up the appropriate regulations.
 The other half of the equation is that in relation to current RPG, PPG11 clearly sets out the fact that the implementation of policies in the RPG through, for example, local plans and local transport plans, must be monitored effectively. Where appropriate, we want draft revisions to RSSs to propose output targets for areas in which policies will be implemented through the actions of other bodies, such as local planning authorities. Those targets will be central to the RPBs' ability to check that the strategy is being implemented as intended. PPG11 gives guidance to RPBs in that respect, and we shall give further advice in due course in the revision to PPG11. 
 It is important to repeat that we see the annual report as giving the wider public a report on the level of public involvement, consultation and so on in terms of any revision to the RSS. I alluded to that when discussing the previous group of amendments. An RPB should have a clear programme of implementation, with actions identified and targets set as an integral part of any draft RSS revision. The validity of the proposals can, of course, be properly examined. 
 On that basis, the annual report should be able to examine progress without being sidetracked into separate action plans. The monitoring process might trigger the need for the preparation of a draft revision of the RSS, or highlight the need for advice to be given to certain bodies on how they might assist in implementing the policies in the RSS. Clearly, as the hon. Member for Mole Valley mentioned, there is no point in monitoring the implementation process if there is no subsequent evaluation and feedback loop to stipulate what will be done if the monitoring shows up inadequacies. 
 We firmly believe that all those elements are in the Bill, or will be in the guidance, and that is why I consider that the clause as drafted achieves the purpose of the amendments without the need to impose additional and unnecessary duties on the regional planning bodies. In that context, without unnecessary alacrity or expedition, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the Minister for what—although I do not wish to offend my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley, and I agree that this is an important matter—I might describe as a somewhat long-winded response on a relatively simple matter. We consider the reports to be unnecessary; as I have already said, there are already sufficient requirements for the RPBs, without their having to produce those reports. However, the Minister gave an explanation for that.
 As the Committee proceeds I am increasingly worried—my hon. Friends may have noticed—about how big the RPGs will become. It seems to me that everything bar the kitchen sink will be put into them, and that if we are not careful, the RPGs will become longer than the Bill itself. I would rather see more detail put into the Bill, so that we can discuss 
 democratically what should be within the powers and obligations of the RPBs, rather than having that detail included in the guidance. However, that is the way in which the Minister proposes to do it, and for the time being we shall have to live with that. I do not agree with what the Minister said, and I do not like the bureaucratic attitude that the clause imposes on the RPBs, but given the time constraints, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

David Wilshire: I beg to move amendment No. 104, in
clause 3, page 2, line 34, leave out 'must' and insert 'may'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
 Amendment No. 7, in 
clause 3, page 2, line 34, leave out 'it' and insert 'the body or person'.

David Wilshire: I cannot have done too bad a job, because I have been let loose again. Perhaps my hon. Friends believe that I need more practice.
 It is easy to look at an amendment that proposes to change the word ''must'' to the word ''may'' and to glaze over and think, ''Here we go again.'' There is, however, a serious point behind the proposed amendment that I am sure that the Government can clear up for us, so that we will not need to press it to a Division. 
 When a planning authority is required to give advice to a person or body, I worry about the commercial implications. I sometimes have a suspicious mind, and can imagine that developers might see that obligation as a cheap way of getting advice on a difficult planning problem, whereas usually they would have to use their own staff or pay for expert advice. Under the proposed provision, a developer could say that the planning body was obliged to give him advice on how to get round a particular problem. I am sure that the Government do not intend to act as a free consultancy, but with the current wording the planning body would have to respond and give advice, even if that advice were commercially useful. 
 The Government should consider giving some discretion to the planning body so that it could say that for commercial reasons, it could not give advice in particular areas. If the Government do not like our approach they might like to reflect on the matter and come back on Report with their own amendment. That amendment could say that under appropriate circumstances—I accept that those circumstances would have to be carefully defined—the planning authority might charge for its advice, if it were asked to do commercial work under this provision. The Government should change the wording from ''must'' to ''may'', giving the authority the power to decline in certain circumstances—or they may prefer to word it differently on Report. No one here wants to set up a free consultancy agency for property developers, which would be entirely wrong. 
 I have difficulty with the provision that would be amended by amendment No. 7. Subsection (6) states: 
''The RPB must give advice to any other body or person if it thinks that to do so will help to achieve implementation''.
 It would be more appropriate if the person or body doing the asking considered that it would help. The power to refuse is in place, and no appeal against it is possible. The amendment would put the onus on the body or people who are asking, and they would be the judges of whether the advice would help, rather than allowing the RPB to decide. These are two genuinely probing amendments, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

Paul Beresford: I shall risk the wrath of the Whip who introduced the amendments. I agree with him about the first one, because ''may'' is often more appropriate than ''must'', but I disagree about the second, to which the care in the community clause is relevant. People who wish to make trouble will cause enormous difficulties if the provision is changed. My hon. Friend will recall from his experience in local government the fact that some people have nothing better to do than to plague local authorities—and the amendment would give those people considerable power. A similar provision appears later in the Bill, and I shall vote against it at that stage.

Tony McNulty: Under the clause, the RPB has to work in partnership with others to further the implementation of the RSS. The RPB has a duty to give advice to others where it would prove useful to the attainment of implementation. It is not merely a discretion, as amendment No. 104 would assert.
 As the hon. Member for Mole Valley argued in respect of amendment No. 7, an RPB would be at risk of being tied up by requests for advice that would contribute nothing to its work—implementation of the RSS—and it might be unable to do its job properly. The amendments would also allow the RPB to opt out of giving advice to others even if it knew that that would help to implement the RSS. 
 I understand where the hon. Member for Spelthorne is coming from, and the amendments are useful in helping us to understand that in pursuit of implementation, it is appropriate to build a statutory duty into the Bill for the RPB to work with others. It would be inappropriate to make that discretionary. RPBs must give advice, but only where it would be helpful. If we made it discretionary, at the strategic regional level it could lead to all sorts of requests in the furtherance of commercial interests. The concerns of the hon. Member for Spelthorne are wide of the mark, because this is all about the regional spatial dimension, rather than site-specific queries that would further the commercial interests of particular developers. 
 In the context of the implementation of the RSS, it is appropriate to give the RPB a statutory duty to provide assistance where required. We all want to avoid a free-for-all, or the establishment of a publicly paid planning consultancy for all and sundry, which would be a greater risk if either amendment were accepted. That idea will not prevail under the clause, and the RPB will be obliged to render assistance to other bodies when the pursuit of the implementation of the RSS would be better achieved with that advice. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

David Wilshire: On amendment No. 104, I readily accept the Minister's argument that there must be an obligation to work with others, and on that basis, I accept that changing ''must'' to ''may'' is not the right way to address the point. If I heard him correctly, he said that he could understand where I was coming from. I will happily give way to him if he would like to tell the Committee that he is prepared to reflect upon the possible abuse of that power. I am not asking him to undertake to come forward with something, but just to reflect upon a point that could lead to abuse. He may conclude that it will not lead to abuse, but there will be an opportunity on Report to examine how one can safeguard an RPB against being made to do commercial work—in return for which I would readily accept that ''must'' is a better word than ''may''.

Tony McNulty: I am happy to reflect on that point but I can say, with all the certainty that I can muster on this day at this time, that we have got it right. I will, however, happily reflect on it.

David Wilshire: That deals with amendment No. 104.
 On amendment No. 7, I have broad shoulders. This morning has been interesting and I have been doing well, but I have been chastised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley. Although it might be painful to be told off in public, I am grateful to him for reminding me of my true roots. Most of the time I would agree with his point but I have been indoctrinated into trying to be a spokesman for the nice party. On that occasion, I was perhaps trying to be too nice. He has a point, which I suspect to be relevant, and when the Minister agreed with him, I realised that I was isolated. I will not therefore bother to pursue amendment No. 7. 
 Given that the Minister is willing to reflect on the lead amendment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Sydney Chapman: Clause 3 deals with the functions of the regional planning bodies in the same way that clause 2 sets them up, and the two clauses are obviously linked. I have no doubt in saying that clause 3, as it has not been amended, does not sufficiently stress the need for public consultation. At the risk of repeating myself—on this point one cannot repeat oneself too much—since the Bill gives increased powers to the Secretary of State and since it sets up RPBs, which to date are not directly elected, it is vital that public consultation and the rights of the public in the planning process are stressed. Sadly, where clause 3 presents an opportunity to stress public consultation—there are further opportunities later in the Bill—it has not been stressed sufficiently.

Tony McNulty: As the hon. Gentleman has said, clause 3 requires an RPB to keep under review the RSS and those matters that may affect development in its region or the planning of such development. I draw hon. Members' attention to the regulatory route map that was circulated last week, which simply states that
 clause 3(5) clearly allows the Secretary of State to determine the form of the annual report. I repeat that a revised PPG11, and the other elements that we have in place for RPBs throughout part 1 of the Bill, will make more than adequate provision for public consultation and involvement at a regional level.
 I let this go earlier, but I cannot continue to do so if the point is going to be repeated: the Bill does not in the broadest sense give the Secretary of State powers to anything like the extent referred to by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. I made it clear last week that the only substantive way in which the Bill gives new powers to the Secretary of State is on RPGs changing into RSSs. It puts in statute many of the range of powers that the Secretary of State already has in administrative law. 
 This is not a Henry VIII or other monarchically inspired Bill. The powers included in it are not being put abroad by diktat or jackboot, or whatever else we were discussing last week. Having nailed that canard, I commend clause 3.

Sydney Chapman: I do not want any misunderstanding. I apologise if I gave the impression that the clause of itself gives increased powers to the Secretary of State. I meant that the Bill in total gives increased powers to the Secretary of State.

Tony McNulty: I am more than happy to accept that the hon. Gentleman's phrase was general and sweeping, rather than applying simply to clause 3. With that in mind, I commend the clause to the Committee.
 Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. 
 Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Peter Pike: Before we move to clause 4, following the points of order raised at the start of this morning's sitting, I can say that the Hansard report for Thursday's morning sitting is now in the Room and can be collected by hon. Members. The position with the report for the afternoon sitting is being looked into.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Pike. I wish to stress how important it is that we have the Hansard reports the day before our Committee sittings take place. Statements from the Minister and others need to be checked, so that we may have an opportunity to ask the Minister questions about his statements. If we do not receive Hansard the day before, it is difficult for the Committee to do its job of scrutinising the Bill properly. Can you ask the authorities to do their level best to make sure that Hansard is available the day before the Committee sits?

Peter Pike: It is not for the Chair to organise Hansard, but I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's comments are passed on. There have always been difficulties in Committees being completely prepared on Tuesdays. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but I know that he and his hon. Friends and other members of the Committee are extremely skilful members of the House and do not completely rely on
 the recorded word when they make their speeches. However, I shall see that the hon. Gentleman's comments are passed on to the appropriate people.

Clause 4 - Assistance from certain local authorities

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I beg to move amendment No.115, in
clause 4, page 2, line 36, at end insert—
'(1) Each RPB should in relation to its region (or any part of it) consult an authority which falls within subsection (2) where such an authority has statutory powers relevant to the carrying out of any function that the RPB has.'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
 No. 114, in 
clause 4, page 2, line 37, leave out paragraph (1).
 No. 73, in 
clause 4, page 2, line 37, leave out from 'consider' to end of line 39 and insert
'which authorities that fall within subsection (2) shall assist it in preparing, keeping under review and monitoring the implementation of the RSS.'.
 No. 120, in 
clause 4, page 3, line 6, at end insert—
'(2A) Any authority identified under subsection (1) above shall assist the RPB in preparing, keeping under review and monitoring the implementation of the RSS.'.
 No. 11, in 
clause 4, page 3, line 12, leave out subsection (5).
 No. 210, in 
clause 4, page 3, line 5, leave out from first 'council' to end of line 17.
 No.215, in 
clause 4, page 3, line 6, at end insert—
'(e) a parish council.'

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This important group of amendments deals with the role of other authorities when the RPB draws up its functions.
 We and many outside bodies consider clause 4 to be one of the Bill's weakest provisions. Subsection (1) says: 
''Each RPB must consider whether in relation to its region (or any part of it) it would be desirable for an authority which falls within subsection (2) to assist it in carrying out any function it has.''
 That can mean all things to all people. It can mean almost zero involvement by any of the higher-tier authorities, or considerable involvement. We believe again that, instead of it being left to the RPB's discretion, it should be written into the Bill. The other authorities listed in subsection (2) should have a statutory involvement. That is why we have tabled amendment No. 115. It seems to me that in drawing up the RSS, the RPB will have to consult those various authorities, so why not say so in the Bill? 
 The amendments are supported by the Local Government Association and others that have a strong weight of experience in such matters. The LGA tell us: 
''It is important for all local authorities to have a statutory role in the RSS process, as it will impinge on strategic and local levels and will need their commitment. Given the lack of other formal 
engagement in the new planning system, it will be particularly important for county councils to have a statutory role in helping to prepare the RSS.
The Bill proposes that the role of county councils will be to advise district authorities on the preparation of Local Development Frameworks (LDFs) (if asked) and provide technical advice to the regional planning body and assist on the sub-regional aspects of the Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) (again, if asked). This role is not statutory.
Failure to establish a statutory planning duty for county councils will inevitably erode the strategic planning function. It will lead to a reduction in funding for strategic planning and the subsequent loss of strategic planning skills, which will be to the detriment of both the RSS and the LDF.
In many parts of the country, county councils have traditionally provided the bulk of the expertise and monitoring to underpin both regional planning guidance and local plans. Monitoring and policy capability does not currently exist at regional or local levels in most areas.
The government has indicated that from next year, money currently going to county councils will go direct to Regional Planning Bodies. It is not explained how county councils are expected to continue to provide input with less money and an intermittent, insecure and voluntary role, at the request of their partners, is not explained. At best, county councils resources in those areas will slowly wither away. Political commitment will inevitably decline for what will have become an ancillary activity and not a core function.
However, the government acknowledges the importance of county councils. Is this a case of desire to have legislative clarity, vis-à-vis outcomes on elected regional assemblies, outweighing a desire to enact legislation to actually deliver on the ground?''
 We have reached a very important point. The Minister must explain the roles that county councils and other authorities will continue to have. If their funding is to be drained away and functions be eroded, the skill and expertise that currently exists in county councils may well be lost. There will be a considerable deficit to planning if the bulk of that skills base is lost. The Minister needs to address that critical point, and he should explain how the county councils will make a smooth transition to the RPB without losing that skills base. 
 Further amendments deal with other functions, notably those in subsections (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7)—a tautologically drafted set of subsections. Subsection (1) says that it is desirable for relevant local authorities to be involved. Subsection (3) says that the RPB will consider whether that is desirable and must ''make arrangements''. However, subsection (5) says that subsection (1) does not apply to any function under clause 5(6). Subsection (6) says that subsection (3) does not apply when the RPB makes arrangements between local authorities as defined by section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972. Our amendment would qualify subsection (3), and make that part of the Bill easier for practitioners to understand. Even if one reads subsections (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) carefully, it is extremely difficult to understand what they mean. Even if our amendments are technically defective, I urge the Minister to see whether those subsections can be redrafted to incorporate something more sensible. 
 Amendments Nos. 210 and 215 are important, particularly the latter. 
 The list of authorities in subsection (2) does not include parish or town councils. We specifically mentioned parish councils in the amendment but could have mentioned town councils as well. From 
 my experience, parish and town councils fulfil several functions extremely effectively, but their main function is monitoring local planning. After all, they are closest to what is happening on the ground. In many cases, the people involved know every inch of their area, and it is right that the Bill should state that they must be involved when RPBs draw up RSSs. I hope that the Minister will address that lacuna. 
 The involvement of county, district and borough councils is critical, and we believe that they should be given stronger statutory powers. Four authorities are mentioned, but there is no mention of unitary authorities. Our amendments seek to correct what must surely be a drafting error. If it is an error, I ask the Minister to accept our amendment so that those authorities can be included. After all, it would be impossible for RPBs to function properly without considering the unitary authorities in their areas. Perhaps the Minister would explain why they are not included in the list.

Sydney Chapman: I would like to go a little further than my hon. Friend in supporting amendments Nos. 115 and 114. The measure transfers—I use that word advisedly—the planning powers and functions of county councils and other local authorities to regional assemblies or regional planning bodies. However, it is essential that county councils keep all their powers and functions unless and until regional assemblies come into being. It is wrong that the powers of directly and democratically elected county councils, metropolitan district councils and so on should be taken away from them and given to a body that is not democratically elected. I hope that the power of what I am suggesting will not be lost if, having made that fundamental point, I sit down again.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sorry to have to intervene on my hon. Friend. Amendments Nos. 76 and 253 are intended to do exactly what he is suggesting, so we will have a full discussion on the matter in due course.

Sydney Chapman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I recognised that, but the matter is so vital that we should take advantage of any opportunity to mention it that can be gained within the rules of order.
 I particularly direct my next point to the Minister, because we both have the privilege of representing constituencies in the Greater London area. I cannot understand why the Government have not followed the model for the Greater London area. The local planning authorities in Greater London are the London boroughs. As I understand it, they have lost virtually none of their powers despite the implementation of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which brought into being the Greater London Assembly and the Mayor. I shall rehearse very briefly what happens in London, and I hope that I will not give the wrong impression by trying to put it as simply and quickly as possible. 
 The local planning authorities—the London boroughs—keep all their powers. The Mayor has only one power in relation to planning. I accept that he 
 has transport powers as well, but his only power under town and country planning, or spatial development, relates to certain categories which, for want of ease, are the substantial planning applications in the Greater London area. He has the right to call in such applications and direct the local planning authority to turn them down. Even if an application is rejected as a result of a direction from the Mayor, or as a result of a local planning authority decision, the applicant has the inalienable right to appeal to the Secretary of State. There is an argument for saying that if one gives the Mayor certain powers, he should act as Secretary of State in the Greater London area. Whether or not one agrees with that, one can see that it is consistent and logical. 
 However, the Government have deliberately not transferred that power to the Mayor and the Mayor's role is therefore essentially superfluous. If he directs the local planning authority to reject the application—incidentally, a local authority can still say that it is minded to approve an application—the applicant can appeal to the Secretary of State. I am sorry if I have gone on slightly longer than I might have done, but this point is important. I do not know why that sort of situation cannot be replicated for the regional planning bodies. 
 In conclusion, RPBs should not be given any powers, except, of course, if there has been a referendum to decide whether people in that region want an assembly. Obviously, it would be wise to do preparatory work in that case. However, that relatively minor exception apart, no power should be transferred until regional assemblies are directly elected.

Matthew Green: I support the amendments because they relate to what I think will turn out to be one of the more crucial elements of how things work in practice. The clause begins: ''Each RPB must''. That makes us think that the RPBs will have to do something dramatic. However, the next word is ''consider''. So, the RPBs do not have to do something, but just have to think about it. They need consider only whether it would be ''desirable'' for a local authority to assist them. The RPB could say that it did not want any assistance from any county council, metropolitan council or unitary authority. I am sure that the Minister will say that the Secretary of State would then be able to take away the powers of that RPB on the grounds that it was not consulting enough of its statutory consultees and not seeking enough assistance. That would be a rather convoluted way of doing things. Surely we want the Bill to ensure that RPBs work in conjunction with the counties, if they still exist, and with the unitary councils that will presumably exist, in one form or another, once regional government is in place.

Paul Beresford: Contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold said, I am concerned, along the lines pointed out by the hon. Member for Ludlow, about London. It is fairly well known that there is a disagreement between many local authorities in London and the Mayor. The Mayor believes in tall buildings, but some of the local authorities do not. I foresee a situation in which the
 Mayor will go ploughing in, taking little or no notice of local authorities, and impose things on those authorities. At the very least, local authorities ought to have the statutory right to interfere, put their point and explain it to the Mayor.

Matthew Green: That point is well made. The crucial point is that we need statutory involvement of the next tier down when the RPB is carrying out its function. We need that because the council, whether it is a county council or a unitary authority, will often have a better grasp of what is needed and wanted at local level. I not talking about local functions, but the RPB will be looking at housing numbers, airports, ports and major road developments, and those matters have a local impact. We need to bring information and views up from the bottom, rather than allowing the top to decide whether to listen to what the bottom thinks.
 I find this part of the Bill slightly surprising. It is clear from what the Minister has said on previous clauses that he is in favour of involving different groups of people in such processes. He speaks well on that and I am surprised that he does not see that it is important to insist on councils being involved.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman is making cogent points. He has already agreed with me that it is important that the Bill should produce a system by which local people can feel ownership of the planning process. We have failed to convince the Government that they need to produce a statement of community involvement. If local people do not feel that the councils closest to them—parish, district, borough and county councils—are properly involved in what they perceive to be a remote regional process, they will feel very alienated. For that reason, if for no other, it is important that local authorities should be involved.

Matthew Green: I concur completely.
 The amendments are relatively modest. They do not seek to put draconian burdens on the regional planning body. They say that the RPBs should consult, but only where the authority 
''has statutory powers relevant to the carrying out of''
 the RPB's function. That does not put an over-onerous task on the RPB. Under amendment No. 73, the RPB would have to consider 
''which authorities that fall within subsection (2) shall assist it in preparing, keeping under review and monitoring the implementation''.
 That is relatively modest and again uses the word ''consider''. The amendments perhaps do not go as far as I should like them to, but they are supported by the Local Government Association and, as I understand it, quite a wide range of councils in that association. 
 I say to Labour Members that, after the Bill is enacted and if the amendments are not accepted, people may visit their constituency surgeries in a few years' time saying, ''We don't like what the region is doing—what can be done about it? Can the local council say anything?'' They will have to turn round and say that the local council cannot do anything because the region can ignore it if it wants to. The result will be that local people will find, exactly as the 
 hon. Member for Cotswold said, that they have very little ability to influence the RPB's work, particularly where the RPB is a regional chamber, not an elected regional assembly. If we get elected regional assemblies, at least local people will have the right every few years to throw out its members if they are upset by decisions on local planning; but they have no control whatever over the people in regional chambers. Especially in their early years, RPBs should have to consult and work with—work with is the important point—lower tiers of authorities.

David Wilshire: I shall speak first to amendment No. 11, because I want to be sure that I wholly understand the position. It has been made clear that the whole clause is woolly and urgently in need of sorting out. The amendments, similarly, take some working out.
 I think that my understanding of the clause is right. We have discussed at some length subsection (1) in relation to whether assistance should be sought from other bodies. Amendment No. 11 would remove subsection (5), which says: 
''Subsection (1)''—
 that is the issue of working with other people— 
''does not apply to a function of the RPB under section 5(6).''
 I take that to refer to what is now clause 5(6), and I see nods in various places. If that is not correct, what I am saying will not be relevant.

Peter Pike: It is correct.

David Wilshire: I have seen enough nods, Mr. Pike, to understand that I have got it sorted out in my mind.
 We therefore need to look at clause 5(6), which says: 
''When the RPB has prepared a draft revision, the report to be prepared under subsection (4)(b) and any other document to be prepared . . . it must—
(a) publish the draft revision, report and other document;
(b) submit them to the Secretary of State.''
 That is what clause 5(6) requires the RPB to do. 
 Clause 4 says, ''You should consider consulting''. We believe that that is not strong enough. We have been round that argument. The present debate is about ''You must work with other people'', so why does subsection (5) say ''Even if you should work with other people, when it comes to clause 5(6), you don't''? That is why I wanted to be clear that I had it right. 
 Clause 4(5) says that, when one turns the page to clause 5(6), whatever may have been said about working with other people does not apply to this part of clause 5. Why? We are saying that working with other people is not adequate. The Government are saying, ''You don't need to do it at all in certain circumstances''. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on amendment No. 11. 
 I turn to amendment No. 215. The Bill provides many points on which we could give some discussion to parish councils. If you will allow me, Mr. Pike, to say all that I want to say in one go, I shall not need to debate the matter again. We need to think seriously about parish councils. It is tempting, when one reads 
 the list in clause 4(2), to say, ''Who cares about parish councils? They are tuppenny ha'penny outfits, sometimes representing only a few hundred people. What can they contribute to the great scheme of civilised 21st century society?'' I went through those arguments many times during my years in local government. 
 Of all bodies, I believe that the parish council should be at the top of the list. Successive Governments since the 19th century have tinkered with local administration. We have been through the gamut of sanitary districts, urban sanitary districts, urban districts, rural districts, county councils, metropolitan this, and metropolitan that. We have just reached unitary authorities when, lo and behold, regions become the fashion. 
 The one thing that marks out all the great and good authorities listed here and all others since the 19th century public health movement got going is that they are artificial, which is why they do not work and why we regularly have to create something else.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Before that.

David Wilshire: My history is not as good as it should be.
 The parish is the one expression of natural self-identity in local government. Artificial bodies come and go, but the parish remains. In debates of this kind, I always predict that if, after we are all long gone, we were to come back from the churchyard after 300 years to sit on a Standing Committee, the parish would be the only thing that we would recognise about local government. It will still be here and everything else will have been changed according to the fashion of the day. 
 We therefore need to understand that if we are to get plans for people right and if we are keen to use vehicles—particularly if the Government are keen to go into social engineering—we need to understand what natural communities want for themselves and what they see for themselves. The only way in which it can be done is by talking to people at parish level, which is where one finds the reality of a community. The higher up the food chain one goes, the further one gets from ordinary people and the more likely one is to deal with what politicians want, which is often not what ordinary people want. Before one knows where one is, one gets into what the technical experts want, which nobody else understands. 
 Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley, one can also get into the realm of what pressure groups want. The further one goes up the great organisations, the more artificial and removed from natural communities they become and the less they represent what people really want. Amendment No. 215 would put the parish council, which is not just a tuppenny-ha'penny outfit, on the list. It is one thing that we can do to ensure that the system produces what people want. Some might say, ''Ah, the parishes do not have the experts or the offices.'' That is exactly the point. The people who contribute at parish councils are ordinary people 
 whose minds are not clogged up by planners who offer them all sorts of advice. 
 Amendment No. 215 is worthy, and I urge the Government not to dismiss it out of hand as a debating point. I should be interested to know whether they believe that parish councils should not be considered and why that might be. I hope that they will accept amendments Nos. 215 and 11, or at least explain why amendment No. 11 is not necessary.

Tony McNulty: Clearly, this is another important debate. I am mindful of the time, but Opposition Members have made plenty of comments that I need to address.
 Clause 4 hangs together naturally with the rest of the Bill. Whatever difficulties people have with clause 4, it is inappropriate to consider it in isolation. It is wrong for the hon. Member for Ludlow to suggest that clause 4 somehow means that an RPG can dismiss or totally ignore local councils. Clearly, it cannot ignore them, not least because of the functions outlined in clauses 2 and 3, and it is entirely in error to suggest that it can. 
 On a more specific point, the definitive list of unitary authorities includes county councils, metropolitan district councils and district councils for an area in which there are no county councils—that is it. The only bodies missing, which would clearly be inappropriate in that list given what the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said, are London boroughs. It is totally unnecessary to add ''and unitary authorities'' because there are no unitary authorities that do not come under those four headings. It is wrong to suggest that there is a ''lacuna'' in the list.

Sydney Chapman: I shall ask the following question quite innocently. My sister, the successful politician in the family, is the deputy leader of Windsor and Maidenhead unitary authority. Does Windsor and Maidenhead come under that list as a metropolitan district council?

Tony McNulty: As I understand it, it is a district council where there is no county council. There are districts with no counties, counties with no districts, metropolitan district councils and London boroughs. That is the extent of the unitary level of local government in this country. There is no need for a catch-all unitary phrase beyond that. Unless someone among those to my left, whose presence in this Room we do not recognise, falls over, I shall maintain that.

Matthew Green: I am slightly bemused by that. Perhaps the Minister would like to comment on what Herefordshire is. It is not a county council, before he says that. It is called Herefordshire unitary authority because it serves the functions of a district and county authority. Counties exist only where there are district councils underneath them. They are part of a two-tier function. Herefordshire and Telford are unitary authorities. The latter was taken out of Shropshire county council and became a unitary authority; it is not called a district council.

Tony McNulty: With the best will in the world, may I say that the hon. Gentleman has only half an hour left
 in which to be bemused in the morning sitting. Unless I hear the thud of someone fainting to my left, I can say that he is absolutely right. Without the other unitary elements, Herefordshire is under law a county council without districts or the other way round, although it may not deem itself so. Name is not important. The status is statutory and it is a district with no counties. There we are.
 Acclamation and reinforcement of what I say is extremely comforting for me as a Minister. It is when my officials start writing faster, and shaking their heads that I worry, which is why I never look at them. 
 The clause is fundamental to the two key principles of the Bill, as the hon. Member for Ludlow said. First, there is a need to achieve only two levels of plan-making: strategic and local. Secondly, there is a need for clarity about responsibility and accountability. Although much of what the hon. Gentleman said underpins what we say about the relative strengths and functions of the system as it is and the transformation of that system, I suspect—as we will discover later—that this is not the appropriate place to debate county councils. 
 Amendment No. 115 would make it compulsory for a regional planning body to consult an authority that falls under the remit of clause 4(2) where that authority has statutory powers relevant to the RPB's function. The change is entirely unnecessary. 
 Authorities, or any other body or person, will have a statutory right to make representations on draft revisions to the RSS. At the discretion of the person appointed to hold the examination, those authorities will be able to participate in examination in public of the draft revision, and they will also be made statutory consultees in the preparation of RSS revisions. That will be done, as I said earlier, through secondary legislation. 
 County councils in two-tier areas will continue to be responsible for minerals, waste and transport planning. In that context, and in that of the criteria to which I referred earlier in the Green Paper relating to the drawing up of RSS, and taking due note of all regional players and stakeholders and other regional factors, bodies that have statutory responsibility for minerals, waste and transport planning will be at the heart of the process. They must be. I will stick my neck out and say that if a Secretary of State approves an RSS or RSS revision where there has been no consultation or collaboration with a statutory body that is responsible for minerals, waste and transport, there is but a slim chance that that RSS would be nodded through or approved. 
 Amendments Nos. 114 and 73 are closely related. The first would leave the RPB with no duty to consider whether it would be desirable for authorities to assist it. The second seems to presuppose that it would always be appropriate that one or more of the authorities should assist the RPB in carrying out its functions. The key to the clause is the carrying out of those functions. Neither amendment would be acceptable. The RPB has responsibility for preparing draft provisions to the RSS and is best placed to judge what, if any, assistance it needs. Neither the duty to 
 consider that issue, nor a requirement always to obtain assistance irrespective of its value would be sensible. 
 Amendment No. 120 would impose a duty on authorities to assist if the RPB requested. The difficulty is how to compel an authority to provide assistance when it has refused to do so through a voluntary agreement. I have never come across an effective partnership in which one party is there by force, not through free will. I do not think that that would be workable in practice. 
 Amendment No. 11 would remove the prohibition on an RPB arranging for an authority to carry out the functions in clause 5(6) on its behalf. Those functions are publishing a draft revision to the RSS, publishing the report of the sustainability appraisal of the proposals in the draft revision, publishing any further documents relating to the draft revision required by regulations under clause 5(5)(b) and submitting those documents to the Secretary of State. 
 As I have emphasised, we attach serious importance to authorities' contributions to the RPB's work, but it is vital to guarantee true regional ownership of the key regional strategy. That means reserving certain key functions to the RPB itself. Amendment No. 11 would allow the RPB to abdicate all responsibility. It would not have to take final responsibility for draft RSS revisions, the report of sustainability appraisal or any other documents required by regulations. Instead of a proper regional strategy, we could end up with an amalgam of policies prepared by individual authorities, which would—perhaps this is the purpose of the amendment, although I am not suggesting that—directly undermine the principle of having two tiers of plans, strategic at regional level and local at district or unitary level.

David Wilshire: All that the Minister has just said about amendment No. 11 would be true if clause 4(1), to which it relates, were about passing over the responsibility for something to somebody else. I can well understand the argument that if a task is passed over, ownership is lost. However, clause 4(1) is about assisting the RPB to do something, not about someone else doing something instead of the RPB, so my argument on excluding assistance surely stands, and the Minister has addressed the wrong point.

Tony McNulty: Absolutely not. The heart of the point is the revision of the RSS under clause 5(6), which is excluded. We are clearly saying that although there may be assistance, there are statutory duties that it is incumbent on the RPB to fulfil. That is the only body responsible for revisions to the RSS. That must be the case, if the points made by the hon. Member for Cotswold on ownership of the process are to be sustainable throughout the system.

David Wilshire: Surely that is not logical. I shall repeat my question. Why is it appropriate for a body to assist in the drawing up of the plan but not to assist in drawing up the revision? Where is the difference? I am trying to get the Minister to comment on that, not on ownership. If assisting in drawing up the original plan is not a loss of ownership, how in heaven's name
 is it a loss of ownership to allow someone to assist in its revision?

Tony McNulty: Because, as I said quite clearly earlier, once the RSS is in place, it is the duty of the RPB and only the RPB to maintain the integrity of the RSS, review its implementation and come forward with any revisions. As we said under clause 3 and parts of clause 2, it can do that with proper participation and involvement from others but, ultimately, the RPB has statutory duties and lives or dies by its achievement of those duties. It can have assistance en route but must be held accountable in the first instance for its statutory duties in the Bill.

David Wilshire: That does not answer the question at all. I shall try once more. Where is the distinction between the plan and the revision of the plan? If it is sensible to have assistance in one activity, we are surely entitled to an explanation of why assistance is to be banned in other activities. It does not undermine the integrity of anything to get help from other people; it jolly well ought to improve it.

Tony McNulty: It is not banned, in any way, shape or form, in clause 4, clause 5 or anywhere else, for relevant bodies to assist in the drawing up of the revision or anything else. What I am clearly saying is that the revision of the RSS as a whole is the statutory duty of the RPB and no one else. The Bill's exclusion of functions under clause 5(6) only emphasises that point.

David Wilshire: Again, I simply cannot follow that. Clause 4(5) does indeed ban the seeking of assistance with a particular function because it excludes functions under clause 5(6) from the assistance-seeking provisions. It is wrong for the Minister to assert that there is nothing in the clause that bans anyone from doing anything. If I have misunderstood the meaning of clause 4(5), would he provide an explanation? So far, he has not in any way contradicted my understanding of it.

Tony McNulty: The only prevention or ban in the Bill, as I have tried to say, relates to the discharging of the RPB's statutory duty. The Bill prevents assistance in the publication and submission to the Secretary of State of the draft revision of the RSS, because that is very specifically the statutory function of the RPB. That is the import and effect of all the different cross-references between Bills.
 Nothing in the Bill prevents assistance simply in drafting informally or otherwise considering subsequent revisions to the RSS, but the element of the statutory function, the core of the two-tier regional and local planning system that is to be put in place, cannot be usurped or passed on to anyone else. It must be discharged by the RPB.

David Wilshire: That would be a splendid argument about statutory duties if it were consistent. As I understand it, the body has a statutory duty to produce the original plan, but clause 4(1) says that it can seek assistance in carrying out that duty. The Minister is having difficulty in persuading me that the statutory duty of providing the plan would be
 undermined by seeking assistance. Let me try again: what is the difference between the statutory duty of revising, in which assistance is inappropriate, and the statutory duty of producing the plan in the first place, for which assistance is considered desirable?

Tony McNulty: I suspect that, given the time, I shall have to live with my disappointment at not having persuaded the hon. Gentleman, and move on.
 Amendment No. 215 would add parish councils to the list of authorities that an RPB must consider when deciding whether assistance in carrying out its functions would be desirable. I am happy to say, as Opposition Members have said, that I have a very high regard for the excellent job that parish councils do. I would not seek to put in place arrangements that in any way undermine the important role that they fulfil. 
 However, the amendment borders on the absurd. The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that RSSs are concerned with planning at specific strategic levels. The functions of an RPB primarily relate to keeping the RSS and the plan of development and the matters that affect it under review, preparing draft revisions of the RSS and giving advice to others to assist in implementing the RSS. Authorities that assist the RPB in carrying out such functions would need to have experience and expertise in such areas—as the hon. Gentleman foresaw. With the best will in the world, parish councils do not have that experience and expertise. 
 Parish councils have no statutory responsibility for planning at either the local or the strategic level, and are not required to have any formal expertise in planning. Therefore they would be unable to undertake survey or review functions or prepare draft revisions. Their focus and expertise is on local rather than strategic issues. That is absolutely right—it is the core of their strength. At no point does the Bill detract from the provisions already in the planning system for parish councils. 
 In addition, proposals in an RSS will rarely, if ever, be expressed in terms of parish areas. As a result, policies in an RSS will not be for parish councils to implement. That does not mean that parish councils will have no input to draft revisions of the RSS. We want to achieve wide community involvement in their preparation. Parish councils will be able to make representations on draft revisions to an RSS through the consultation on proposals, and may have input through district councils and other upper-tier authorities on working groups that are preparing draft revisions.

David Wilshire: I fear that when the Minister reads Hansard and reflects calmly on what he has just said, he will discover that he has insulted every parish council and councillor—because the argument adduced for not putting them on the list is that they are not intelligent or expert enough, and that they have nothing to contribute.

Tony McNulty: Rubbish.

David Wilshire: The Minister said that parish councils did not have the expertise. It is as if one must be a technical expert to organise aspects of people's lives in
 the future. I find that insulting, and I suspect that many parish councillors will feel deeply insulted by the Minister's comments.

Tony McNulty: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is getting tired. He spent all Thursday putting words in my mouth and now he is doing it again, to a ridiculous extent.
 I said that the parishes had no statutory duty relating to planning at local strategic level and were not required to have any formal expertise in planning. Authorities assisting RPBs to carry out that function need experience and expertise in those areas, but with the best will in the world, parish councils simply do not. If the hon. Gentleman is offended by that, tough. The consultation role of parish councils at local level throughout the country will be enhanced rather than otherwise by the provisions in the Bill, and the hon. Gentleman made an entirely spurious point. 
 Nothing in the amendments would add to RPBs' ability to fulfil their statutory role or to the provisions to allow county councils, metropolitan district councils, district councils and national park authorities—they have an important role in planning matters but there is not enough time to go into that—to assist RPBs. In that context—forlornly, I suspect—I ask Opposition Members not to press the amendments, because they would add nothing to the power and ability of the authorities that they seem so concerned about to influence RPBs or RSSs as they suggest. If anything, the amendments would detract from their ability to do so.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This debate has been an enlightening experience. The longer the debate continues, the more hostages to fortune the Minister gives. His comment that amendment No. 215, which would include parish councils, borders on the absurd will enrage members of parish and town councils throughout the country. I do not know where the Minister has been during his eleven and a half years on a planning committee, but if he has not found out about the considerable expertise and knowledge on those parish and town councils, he has not been living in this world.
 The clause is weak enough as it is. It merely states that RPBs must consider—

Tony McNulty: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I shall give way in a minute.
 The clause does not even say that RPBs must consult, which is what I would have preferred. Surely RPBs would be very foolish if they did not consider well constructed and well thought-out representations from individual parish and town councils when a large development was about to affect their area.

Tony McNulty: I shall add another hostage to fortune for the hon. Gentleman: the world in which I live, as he knows, is a London borough where I was a member of a planning committee for eleven and a half years—and where there is no such thing as a parish or a town council. That is just for the record.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Game, set and match. That shows how little knowledge the Minister has of the rest of the country. The Bill does not primarily cover
 London; it primarily covers the rest of the country—the eight regions. The Minister has admitted how little knowledge he has of those other areas. People will listen to, and read, these exchanges with great interest, and they will hear what the Minister has to say. In failing to consider a more important consultative role for county and district councils he has failed to consider the expertise that is available in those authorities. He has said not one word about how he will maintain the skill base and expertise within county councils. Unless planning officers in those authorities receive some reassurance fairly quickly, that will drain away and the system throughout the country outside London, about which he knows nothing, will suffer. The Minister's consideration of and reply to these amendments is wholly inadequate. I feel very strongly about the matter, and urge my hon. Friends to support me in pressing the amendment to a vote.
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 7.

Question accordingly negatived.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I beg to move amendment No. 52, in
clause 4, page 3, line 6, at end insert— 
 '(e) A unitary authority.'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
 Amendment No.289, in 
clause 15, page 9, line 7, at beginning insert 'A unitary authority or'.
 Amendment No.290, in 
clause 15, page 9, line 18, at end insert 'or unitary authority.'.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This is a group of simple amendments. There seems to us to be a lacuna in the list of authorities in clause 4(2), as unitary authorities are not listed. Having heard the Minister's explanation for that, and having, perhaps prematurely, become involved in the argument on the previous group of amendments, I am prepared to sit down and let the Minister give us an explanation, which I hope will be adequate. Then we can move on to other amendments.

Sydney Chapman: I fully accept what the Minister told us earlier—that a unitary authority is defined in subsection (2)(c). I suggest that he either change paragraph (c) to read ''a unitary authority'' or at least, if there are district councils in an area in which there is no county council other than unitary authorities—this is where I think it would be wise to expand the Bill—add to that paragraph the words ''including unitary authorities''. The phrase ''unitary
 authority'' is far better known than the rather tortuous definition in the Bill.

David Wilshire: I too shall be brief. The Minister was kind enough to say that I was right earlier this morning. The piece of paper that he was handed was absolutely right, in that the legal definition of districts without counties is exactly that, although most of the councils concerned like to conceal the fact.
 I was always under the impression that the two exceptions to all the other rules that the Minister has correctly explained were first, the City of London, which is outside the scope of the Bill, and secondly, the Isles of Scilly. Can the Minister reassure us that the definitions in the Bill include the Isles of Scilly council?

Tony McNulty: I have no idea about the Isles of Scilly—but without a doubt I shall find out in a minute.
 There is no such term as ''unitary authority'' in primary legislation. To add unitary authority as an additional definition would be irrelevant, because it is not a recognised concept in primary legislation; it is merely a device used by the local government boundary commission and others to determine what an authority does. 
 As I have said, there are four distinct types of unitary authority. The only three that are relevant to the clause are in the Bill. London boroughs are the fourth type. For those reasons, and those that I mentioned earlier, it is inappropriate to accept the amendments. They would add nothing to the Bill, except a phrase that does not exist in any other primary legislation. I suspect that we would then have to produce a schedule the size of a telephone book that explained what we meant in the Bill by the term ''unitary authority''.

Sydney Chapman: I confess that I did not know that unitary authorities were not mentioned in any other legislation, so I gratefully accept what the Minister says, and I thank him for explaining that. I also remind him that the Isles of Scilly are dealt with in clause 81, which specifically refers to clause 4. That may be helpful to him.

Tony McNulty: I thank the hon. Gentleman for thanking me for the help that I gave him, and in return I thank him for the help that he has just given me in pointing to clause 81. The pleasure, as an ex-Whip and as a Minister who deals with knives, is that one goes with the knife at the time, and rereads the Bill at weekends when one has time.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Having heard the Minister's explanation, and particularly the fact that there is no statutory definition of a unitary authority, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Peter Pike: I call Mr. Clifton-Brown to move amendment No. 74.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Because of the pernicious timetable, I want to use our final few minutes to
 discuss the next group of amendments Mr. Pike, so I shall not move amendment No. 74.

Peter Pike: That is fine.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I beg to move amendment No. 76, in
clause 4, page 3, line 17, at end insert— 
 '(8) Where no elected regional assembly exists, the relevant Structure Plans or Unitary Development Plans (Part 1) should continue to be prepared by the responsible local authorities.'.

Peter Pike: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 253, in
clause 4, page 3, line 17, at end insert— 
 '(8) In regions where no directly elected assembly exists each RPB must attempt to make arrangements to permit any authority which falls within subsection (2) to assist it in its functions by preparing sub-regional strategies consistent with and subsequently, for inclusion within, the RSS. 
 (9) In regions where no directly elected assembly exists each authority which falls within subsection (2) must assist the RPB by preparing sub-regional strategies in conjunction with other authorities which fall within subsection (2) as determined by the RPB. 
 (10) Section 5 (3) will apply to any authority carrying out its functions under subsection (9).'.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Committee members have mentioned the interim period before any elected regional assembly exists. We feel that the regional chambers' lack of democratic accountability will be a problem. I have already stated that many of the chambers will contain indirectly elected members. County, district and other bodies will propose representatives to the chambers, so they will not be properly democratic.
 We feel that it is not reasonable for a regional planning body to assume large powers—a matter on which my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet touched when we discussed a previous group of amendments—until the region gets an assembly. 
 The amendments seek to prevent those powers from coming into effect until the people have had a chance to vote in a referendum for a regional assembly. I remind members that to set up a regional assembly is a considerable process: the Government must take soundings; then they must draw up proposals for unitary authorities; and then they may hold a referendum. A regional assembly will come into operation only when people have voted in that referendum. 
 With a huge upheaval in the planning process being proposed, and given the huge centralising powers that the RPB has, particularly as the Minister refuses to allow any statutory consultation with the lower-tier authorities, it is all the more relevant that those powers should not come into effect until the regional assembly is up and running. 
 I cannot stress enough that if people are to feel ownership of that system, if they are not to be alienated from it, and if they are not to feel that the Secretary of State and some remote regional body are imposing on their local areas regulations that they do not like, they will become more alienated from the democratic process. We cannot be surprised that 
 turnout drops election after election. There must come a point at which democracy will be in peril. 
 The House must put in place structures that local people feel that they can really control and influence. My real fear is that people will not feel that they have control over their planning system because of the Bill's centralising tendency. They may not come back with a vengeance against that system immediately, but they will in some years' time. I suspect that some future hon. Members will be back in some future Committee Room to try to start the whole process again or radically to overhaul it. 
 I hope that the Minister will consider the amendments. I am not confident that he will, because he seems to want the centralising tendency all the time. However, the Opposition have a duty to ensure that democracy is alive, vibrant and kicking.

David Wilshire: On a point of order, Mr. Pike. In a matter of moments we shall discover why it is entirely wrong to programme Bills. When it comes to guillotining this part of the Bill, my colleagues and I consider it entirely wrong that any clause that has not even been considered in Committee should stand part of the Bill. Therefore, we should like to have Divisions on each of the clauses that have not been considered. This is an abuse of democracy; it is crazy, and we now see the Government exposed for what they are.

Peter Pike: Order. Under the Standing Orders of the House, I must put a series of questions. I need to do that now. There will be two Divisions only—one on the amendment that has been made and one on the clauses.
 It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Sessional Order D [29 October 2002] and the Order of the Committee [9 January 2003], to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair. 
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 7.

Question accordingly negatived. 
 The Chairman then proceeded to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that time. 
 Question put, That clauses 4 to 11 stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 4.

Question accordingly agreed to. 
 Clauses 4 to 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill. 
 Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past Eleven o'clock till this day at half-past Two o'clock.